Pete Alonso of the Baltimore Orioles holds the sole American League home run lead with 42 on Friday, September 25, 2026, pulling clear of a group that included Tampa Bay Rays third baseman Junior Caminero, Houston's Yordan Alvarez, and New York's Ben Rice. The margin over the runners-up is 2.4 percent, a slim but meaningful separation with the regular season winding toward its final days. For Rays fans watching Caminero's power development all year, this leaderboard shift is a direct data point worth tracking as the standings picture firms up.

The Number: 42 Home Runs and a Sole Lead

Alonso's 42nd home run moved him from a shared position into outright first place in the AL. The separation is tight — the 2.4 percent margin over the next-closest hitter underscores how compressed the race has been. Alonso is on the active roster and has been playing since September 16, 2026, meaning this surge is happening in the final stretch of the regular season calendar.

For context, Alonso hit 38 home runs across 162 games in 2025 with a .272 average, .871 OPS, and 126 RBI. His 2025 rate of one home run every 16.42 at-bats gives a baseline for how his 2026 pace compares — 42 home runs represents a step forward from that benchmark.

The Context: What This Means for Junior Caminero and the Rays

From a Devil Rays Daily perspective, the most relevant name in this leader-flip is Junior Caminero. The Rays' young third baseman had been among the AL home run co-leaders, but Alonso's move to 42 pushed Caminero out of the sole or shared top spot. The event data confirms Caminero was one of the players who lost the shared lead when Alonso took it outright.

Caminero's presence in this conversation at all — competing with a veteran like Alonso and an established power hitter like Yordan Alvarez — is a factual statement about his production in 2026. The exact number of home runs Caminero has accumulated is not confirmed in the available data, but his inclusion among the AL leaders who held the shared mark before Friday's shift speaks for itself.

The Other Names Who Fell Back

  • Yordan Alvarez, Houston Astros — One of the AL's most consistent power threats in recent years, Alvarez had been in the shared lead group before Alonso's push to 42.
  • Ben Rice, New York Yankees — Rice was also among the co-leaders who lost the shared top position when Alonso separated.
  • Junior Caminero, Tampa Bay Rays — Caminero's appearance at the top of this leaderboard deep into the 2026 regular season is a concrete marker of his development as a power hitter at the major league level.

Why It Matters: Race Is Not Over

With the date sitting at September 25, 2026, there are still games remaining in the regular season schedule. A 2.4 percent margin between Alonso and the runners-up is not a commanding lead — it is a foothold. Caminero, Alvarez, and Rice all remain within range to reclaim a share of the lead or surpass Alonso outright if any of them connect over the final days.

For the Rays and their fans, the question is simple: can Caminero close that gap? His presence in the AL home run conversation this deep into the season is not a projection or a narrative — it is what the data shows.

What Comes Next

The AL home run race entering the final days of the 2026 regular season is genuinely unsettled. Alonso holds the lead at 42, but the margin is narrow enough that a single at-bat from any of the three runners-up changes the leaderboard again. Caminero's trajectory in this race will be one of the clearest individual storylines to follow as the Rays close out 2026. Whether or not he catches Alonso, finishing among the AL home run leaders as a young player on this roster is the kind of verifiable production that carries weight going into the offseason.